


Five Ways Barry's Family is Awesome (And One Way Less So)

by nirejseki



Series: Lil Bro AU [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-11 10:50:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7045444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry loves his new family - Mick and Len and Lisa - even when they drive him crazy.  A series of snippets from when Barry is fifteen years old. </p><p>(Lil Bro verse: Barry is Mick's younger brother)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. They Always Have Your Back

**Author's Note:**

> I got a handful of prompts about Barry as a teenager, so I decided to try my hand at a 5 + 1 fic before moving on to Barry as a grown up.
> 
> Chapter 1: They Always Have Your Back

“I’m doomed,” Barry announced in a grandiose fashion, flopping face-first onto his sofa. His, because it was neither Len’s couch (black, large enough for three but Len required all of it to lounge on), nor Lisa’s armchair (basically a couch, terrible upholstery design, soft enough to risk drowning in) or Mick’s...whatever the hell that was (possibly a futon, but no one is quite sure; it was squat and narrow and lived diagonally from Len’s couch and Barry thinks that one day it will grow teeth a la the Luggage from Discworld), and also because he got to pick it out himself.

At the furniture store in the middle of the night, while Lisa emptied the till.

Well, you can’t have everything, if your definition of “everything” included receipts demonstrating legal purchase.

“Why’s that?” Len asked from where he was predictably sprawled out over his couch, flipping through a magazine. It looked like an art magazine, which was good – it meant he was still in the “selection” stage of planning his next heist, forecasting some calm times ahead. Lisa was curled up in front of the computer, playing Minesweeper with an excessively serious expression. Mick had been in the kitchen making dinner, but by this point had wandered in to poke at a fire truck engine while dinner roasted – Barry still didn’t know where he’d gotten the engine or why he was trying to fix it, but he’d also learned there wasn’t any point in asking either of those questions. 

“You know the chemistry competition I won?” Barry replied, lifting his head up.

“Obviously,” Len said, cracking a slight grin at the memory. “We took you out to dinner afterwards, remember?”

“I _remember_ ,” Barry said, aiming for long-suffering and mostly coming out fond. “It took me two days to get the confetti out of my hair, you know that, right?”

“Back to the subject. How does winning the chemistry thingy mean you’re doomed?” Mick asked, not looking up from his engine. “I thought it was pretty cool.”

“My project _was_ pretty cool,” Barry admits – no shame, it really was. “But today my science teacher got on the intercom and announced all the winners to the whole school, except I was the only one who won, well, anything, so it was basically talking about how awesome I was for like five minutes solid.”

Lisa hummed and nodded. “Social suicide,” she said. “Tough luck, kiddo.”

Barry stuck out his tongue at her. He was fifteen, he wasn’t a “kiddo” any more. It wasn’t like Lisa was much older – only three years! – though admittedly she _was_ in college now and that made a difference. 

Mick put his wrench down and turned around, eyes narrowing. “Anyone been causing you problems?” he growls. He’d gotten a bit paranoid ever since Barry had come home and regaled everyone with the story of how Ansel Devries had gotten shoved in a locker. 

“Mick, relax,” Len said. “It’s not going to be a problem.”

Barry looked at him doubtfully. “It’s not?” he asked. There were a bunch of bullies at his school – wannabe gang members and drug dealers, jocks trying for a sports scholarship they were never going to get, your assortment of assholes who think they’re better than everyone else because their families are from the richer side of the neighborhood, and all the rest of them, and it wasn’t exactly easy laying low and avoiding all of them. Even worse now that the teacher had all but painted a giant “nerd” symbol on his back.

“Nope,” Len said. “Sometimes these things require finesse, not force. Lisa, can you do me a favor and drive Barry to work tomorrow? I’ve got a…thing.”

“Sure thing,” Lisa said, beaming when Len dug out the keys to his motorcycle and tossed them to her. “Reading you loud and clear, big bro.”

Mick was still frowning, but Len got up and put a hand on his shoulder, calming him down. 

Barry sighed. He still wasn’t sure what Len was planning, but Len was the mastermind of the group. If he thought he had an idea, he probably had an idea. And he wondered what Len’s thing was – if he was still planning his next heist, it couldn’t be work related. Could it?

The curiosity followed him all the next morning, because Len was still there to make breakfast for everyone (eggs for Lisa and Barry, with the box mix for pancakes for Mick put out to the side to be ready for when Mick finally dragged himself out of bed because if there was a surefire way to convince Mick to feed them all proper waffles and pancakes on the weekend it was to present him with the substandard variation during the week) instead of off on his alleged “thing”. 

“C’mon, Bar,” Lisa said, dangling Len’s keys. “You’re gonna be late for school if I don’t kick your ass now.”

“I’m not _always_ late,” he complained, only for both Snart siblings to laugh in his face. Okay, maybe he had a little problem with punctuality. But not as bad as Mick!

Lisa was dressed up, actually – she had on her skintight leather jacket, with the front zipped down until it flashed a bit of the lacey bra she was wearing, gold necklace emphasizing that low-dipped v, leather pants looking like they were painted on. Barry had spent two solid years following puberty finding it hard to look at her straight, but he liked to think he’d gotten over it and was content in wondering who she was going to go con next.

He was totally cool. Definitely over having the world’s hottest sister-in-law.

Definitely.

Well, mostly.

Wow, that jacket dipped _really low_ , was Len really okay with her going out like that?

_No, Barry,_ he thought to himself. _Len doesn’t get to have a say in what Lisa wears because she is a fully autonomous and independent adult who can exercise her agency in choosing whatever clothing she enjoys wearing most, and if for some reason that involves heels you could kill a person with and clothing more restrictive than a corset, that’s her choice. You don’t want to get that lecture again._

Okay, he totally wasn’t over it, but Lisa had given him the excruciating “yes, everyone in this family is super hot but I’m the one you’ve spent the least amount of time with growing up so you are welcome to have sexual thoughts about me as long as you realize that you don’t actually want to date me because our personalities are in no ways compatible” talk, which, you know, was both totally fair and also an excellent bucket of cold water to splash over himself because that was another conversation he was never, ever having with anyone _ever again_.

Lisa tossed him his helmet and he clung to her waist the entire ride. She wasn’t really driving fast enough to warrant it but man, he was _fifteen_. Give him a break.

When they came to a stop at the front entrance of his school – Lisa insisted, even though Len usually dropped him off down the street on the turn – she turned off the engine and pulled off her helmet, shaking her head and letting her hair stream behind her like she was in a Bond movie. “Have a nice day at school, babe,” she said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you when you get out, ‘kay?”

Barry nodded.

Lisa made what seemed like an excessively long production of turning the engine back on and getting back on the bike before driving off, but whatever, Lisa was weird.

He turned to go inside.

Oh, hey, look, all the bullies at his school were gaping like a bunch of empty-headed trout in the direction Lisa went.

…oh.

_Damnit_ , Len!


	2. 2.	They Teach the True Meaning of Respect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2\. They Teach the True Meaning of Respect

Jake wasn’t exactly _dis_ pleased with his assignment in history class. Sure, he was paired up with the school nerd – goddamn Farooq had managed to snag Darya first, _again_ – but on the other hand, he was _paired with the school nerd_. The kid was like, what, three grades ahead of where he was supposed to be? Talk about an easy A. 

Barry had looked more aggravated than scared, but Jake figured it wouldn’t be that tough to convince him to do all the work and let Jake coast by. Still, before he could raise the suggestion to Barry after class, Barry had shoved a piece of paper with an address and a time on it, hissed “ _Be there_ ” and was out the door like a bat out of hell. 

Probably late for some stupid after-school nerd class.

Though he _did_ have that incredibly hot sister. Sister-in-law? Whatever. The one that dropped him off, who Barry had said attended the local community college. Maybe she’d be home. 

Jake smirks. Maybe he would be a _little_ more involved in this whole project thing than he’d been planning. If he could use the time to get up close and personal with Ms. Smoking Hot, a school project with Barry would be a perfectly good reason to hang out there a lot, quieting the fears of any twitchy dads with shovels. Perfect. 

He follows the directions to the address and stops at what he thought was the right street, but there weren’t any houses here. It was a commercial area, couple of beaten up shops, a few vacant lots, a bar.

Jake checks his watch. He was only a half-hour late. Where the hell was Barry?

“Hey, Jake!”

Speak of the nerd and he appears. Nice.

Jake turns to see Barry walking down the street, still weighed down by that absurd backpack of his. 

“Barry,” Jake says, nodding. Couldn’t hurt to play nice if there was a risk of meeting the sister; he could always turn up the pressure later. “Where’s your place?”

Barry points to the bar, some neighborhood dive called Saints and Sinners. “We can work in there,” he says. 

Jake’s eyebrows shoot up. Not bad, nerd. Unexpected depths. The bar looked legit, too, not some stupid upscale nerdy joint. “They’ll let us in?” he says skeptically. He was pretty sure he and his friends knew all the bars that didn’t card – sure, this one was a bit further into downtown than they usually ventured, but it’d even be worth putting up with Barry and whatever dorky friends he had for the cheap beer. He’d bring Farooq and Darya and the rest of the gang; it’d up the nerd’s social status points a bit, he’d probably be grateful.

Barry rolls his eyes. “It’s fine,” he replies, shifting his bag from one side to the other. “You coming or what?”

Then they walk in and Jake abruptly realizes _why_ the older guys on the football team never brought them down here, carding or no carding. This wasn’t just some neighborhood dive that didn’t card; some of the guys sitting around the bar looked like serious bad news. Like, mob-style bad news. 

Luckily, there are no free seats. Jake’s just about to point this out when Barry – _Barry_ , little nerd-badge-holding, barely-scraped-a-C-in-gym Barry – walks right over to one of the booths and says, “Hey, can we have this table?” to a group of guys covered in what are obviously prison tats. 

_And they move._

One of them reaches out to ruffle Barry’s hair but he ducks away and scowls. Another one of the guys laughs and elbows the first guy. “C’mon, we’ll sit at the bar,” the second guy tells the first, heavy accent of some sort mangling his words. “Doing homework, Bar?”

“School project,” Barry replies, shrugging. “Why’s it so crowded, anyway? It’s a bit early.”

“Game tonight. Len promised everyone, yes?” the man replies mysteriously. 

Barry sighs. “ _Sports_ ,” he says grumpily and dumps his bag on the table, only then seeming to notice that Jake was still standing by the entrance. “You coming?” he asks. “I figure we can brainstorm ideas and then figure out who’s doing what…”

Jake gingerly slides into the booth. Maybe Barry’s dad owns the bar or something?

Barry ends up explaining the last few days of class to Jake, making significantly more sense than the teacher ever had. Jake’s mostly nodding along and keeping an eye out on the growing number of scary-looking people lingering by the bar and watching some sort of game – hockey, maybe – on the bar TV, which is pretty crappy quality. Doesn’t look like their team is winning, judging by the occasional groan and snarl. 

The tension in the room is growing thicker and thicker by the second, but Barry just keeps on plugging away at the stupid history project. It’s more interesting that Jake had expected – Barry had the idea of writing out the sequence of battles like football plays, which actually sounds like something Jake would enjoy doing, weirdly enough, and then presenting them football-announcer-style – but seriously, there’s about to be a bar brawl like two feet away from them. Doesn’t the kid _notice_?

Jake misses the person who threw the first punch, but suddenly there’s a lot of yelling and people are pulling out knives and – _holy crap,_ those are _real guns_. The gangbangers at their school talk a lot about them, but they don’t bring them to school. Jake’s always been told to avoid the parts of town where the CCPD doesn’t dare to go and he’s never actually seen a gun this close up before.

Someone fires a shot and then there’s an ear-splitting roar as a freaking _enormous_ guy leaps up onto the bar. “Next one who moves fights _me_ ,” he bellows. “I’ll burn you all where you stand, you little bastards!”

The whole bar goes dead quiet. 

“Much obliged, Mick,” another man drawls. He’s leaning on the bar with a smirk on his face, casual as anything, looking comfortable like there wasn’t just an ongoing brawl. Jesus Christ, this really is a mob bar, and that must be the don right there; sure, he’s young for it and he’s wearing a black turtleneck instead of a suit, but you can see he’s the guy in charge by the way he’s standing. The big guy must be his enforcer. “Gentlemen, I assure you, I’m as disappointed as you,” the boss continues. “But rules are rules – you made a bet, you pay up. And if you behave, everyone gets a round on me, just as _I_ promised.”

His eyes narrow. “But the next piece I see being flashed around in _my_ bar when there’s _kids_ around won’t get _lucky_ enough to fight Mick. You get me?”

Jake is frozen solid when a few of the big guys glance over their way. Barry’s nose is still buried in his book; he’s mumbling something about needing a historiography section. 

The big guy on the bar jumps down – everyone wisely clears a space – and people settle back into their seats with only minimal grumbling that goes away entirely as the bartender starts setting up shots of tequila up and down the bar. 

The big guy walks straight over to them and Jake’s fingers are tight around the base of his chair and he’s praying he’s getting home tonight. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” the guy grunts. 

Barry looks up and beams. “No problem, Mick,” he replies. “We’re actually making good progress – I think we have a decent plan for how we’re going to do the presentation, and most of the information we need we’ve already learned in class. It’s basically going to be about repackaging it, honestly, though there’s a few sections I want to look into some more.”

The big guy – Mick, apparently – grunts again, apparently in approval. “I’ll take you to the library on the weekend,” he says. “Len wants to kill some time by the Motorcar again.”

Barry nods like this means something. 

Mick turns to look at Jake, who mostly tries not to quail in terror. “You from Bar’s school?” he asks, sounding suspicious and more than a little threatening.

“Oh, yeah,” Barry says, blinking a little like he just realized something. “Mick, this is Jake; he’s from school. Don’t worry, he’s not one of the guys that beat up Ansel – he’s fine.” Mick nods and the degree of menace goes down from DEFCON 1 to something more like 3 or 4 – still deadly, but not, like, imminent death. “Jake, this is my big brother, Mick Rory.”

Jake boggles a little. This is Barry’s _brother_? Holy crap.

He is never beating up another nerd _ever again_.


	3. 3.	They Demonstrate Useful Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3\. They Demonstrate Useful Skills

Barry sometimes wonders if Mick and Len get frustrated at him. It’s not that he _isn’t_ using everything that they teach him, it’s just that he doesn’t really end up in situations where it’s all that useful is all. Or, you know, weird situations where it is useful but not in the way they thought it would be.

Like, lock-picking. Honestly, it’s a little hypocritical of them, teaching him lock-picking and then refusing to let him go on jobs with them – never mind that he doesn’t particularly _want_ to go on jobs with them – and then judging him for using it to help his science teacher get into his lab when he forgot his keys at home.

Barry would also like to point out in his defense that he was, like, the fourth student to offer to pick the lock. He just happened to be the only one of them that actually could do it. (Seriously, if you have three girls offering you hair pins and you still can’t jimmy a basic door handle, Barry’s seriously wondering what type of so-called “gang” you’re part of. Maybe it’s code for something?)

(Unsurprisingly, Mick and Len were both bizarrely approving of every time he used it to break into potentially paranormal crime scenes, though he did get a lecture about “not getting caught” for like the _millionth time_ every time he did it.)

And he’d been really excited to learn about pickpocketing – Len, who was miles away better at it than either Mick or Lisa, had finally given in and agreed to teach him, before eventually declaring him a total hopeless failure (which by Len's standards meant "not too shabby") – but it wasn’t like he was going to steal from other kids at his school. That would be _wrong_ and he’s not going to do it.

Well, okay, there was the time when the two gangbangers were going to get into a fight and Barry stole their knives and hid them under the (empty) class aquarium. 

And maybe the time when the teacher kept putting her keys away only to need them ten minutes later, but that was just being polite and saving time.

Oh, and pranking people _totally_ doesn’t count as using your pickpocketing skills for evil!

Maybe a little.

And, admittedly, the local country-style fair they set up in a few vacant lots to the north side of town was probably not where they were expecting him to use his _painfully_ acquired knowledge of firearms, but as soon as the girls in class realized Barry could win them unreasonably large stuffed animals on a fairly reliable basis on all the shooting games, they mobbed him.

Best. Day. Ever.

It wasn’t like they were _real_ guns anyway. Mick could insist he know how to use one all he likes; Barry doesn't like them. 

Other skills were more immediately and repeatedly useful to Barry's life. Like how to set up an appropriate gambling ring! That was a lot of fun to set up over lunch, even it had mostly been just him, Jamie, Naresh and Rashawn for a while. It wasn’t like they played for _money_ , after all (Mick grumbled about that, but Barry just refuses to fleece his innocent classmates for more than the choice Reeses' cups); they're just trading around bits of their lunch. It got a bit weird when Jake – who’d been freakily nice ever since they’d worked together on that history project, maybe he just really liked Barry’s idea of doing history as football? – wandered by and wanted in on the action, especially when he brought over some of his friends, but hey, the more the merrier. Especially if Darya kept making stupid bets with those delicious turkey subs.

Honestly, some of the more useful life skills were things they didn’t even realize they were teaching him. Admittedly, he’d somehow gotten the impression that _everyone_ knew all the basic steps to do when there was a fire (keep calm, measure the size and determine if you can put it out using water, dirt, or air pressure; if not organize an exit and make sure it won’t spread) so he was more than a little embarrassed when everyone seemed really, really impressed at him putting out the fire that got started when some asshole was smoking in English class and set his chair on fire. He hadn’t even put it out, either; he’d just pulled out his lighter and went to activate the nearest sprinkler because that was clearly the obvious move here. He'd done it at least a dozen times before. But no, everyone seemed super impressed.

Naresh asked him why he even had a lighter because he knew Barry didn’t smoke. Barry told him – honestly – that it was because his big brother sometimes forgot his and needed to borrow one.

The fact that Mick usually needed it for arson, not cigarettes, didn’t get mentioned. Didn't really seem relevant. 

Ironically enough, it was Len’s skillset that got him his summer job interning at the local science lab. Len was meticulous about neatness in his robberies, every t crossed, every i dotted; he kept up to date with all the regular periodicals on chemical analysis used in criminal detection, which Barry thought was _fascinating_. Always happy when someone was actually listening to him talk instead of just nodding along, Len would regularly walk him through all the basic methods of crime detection, the new developments in the field, or, as Len put it, “how dumb criminals get their ass put behind bars”.

They’d been watching TV in class – not as rare an instance as Barry would’ve liked, because the teachers sometimes just didn’t feel up to teaching – when the news interrupted with images of a crime scene, some high end store that had been busted into.

Barry had laughed.

“It’s not nice to laugh at other people’s misfortune, Mr. Rory,” the chem teacher had told him without looking up from his phone.

“No, it’s not that,” Barry had said, blushing a little. “Just that it’s funny that they’re interviewing the person that did it, is all.”

The teacher, Mr. Peterson, looked up from his phone. “Why do you say that?” he’d asked. 

“Look at the handle on the safe,” Barry had replied, pointing. “It’s all twisted to the side, but you can tell from here that lock on the safe is twisting with it. The only way that could’ve happened with that model of safe is if the lock was already open when someone went nuts on the door to it. If you could open the safe without attack the door, why would you attack the door? The only person with any incentive and ability to both open the safe and then trash it is the shop owner. Who they're now interviewing.”

Mr. Peterson had thought about it for a second. “Sounds like decent reasoning to me,” he’d said. “Why don’t you call in a tip?”

Barry had called the hotline and been handed around a few times before the phone was eventually handed to a Christina McGee, who had apparently stored some items in this particular safe and was not letting the police forget about it. She also headed up one of the bigger labs in the city and lent out space to the CCPD’s CSI, so she had the power to kick their ass and mean it, too. She liked his theory, particularly when he added in what he’d noticed about the direction of the footprints (insofar as he could tell from the television - he'd asked her to go check, which she had; she was a very nice lady). He’d ended up asking her if they’d done a particular chemical analysis that Len had read about to him last week and Ms. McGee had promptly offered him a summer internship to learn about how to do it, if only because she couldn’t believe none of the local CSIs had suggested it yet.

Science; it was awesome. And potentially lucrative. Legitimately, no less!

Now he just needed to figure out how to explain that he might be helping out here and there with some crime lab analysis work over the summer to Len and Mick and Lisa…


	4. 4.	They Protect the Local Community

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4\. They Protect the Local Community

When Barry was twelve – less than a full year out of foster care and with Mick, starting to really settled in to his new life but still treading carefully around Len – there had been this teacher at his new school that he didn’t much like. Honestly, everyone at his new school was a little weird; he didn’t want to actually come out and admit it, feeling like a horrible snob, but the inner city public school he was attend was like night and day away from the one he had previously gone to in the suburbs, where everyone’s parents were doctors or lawyers or professors or cops. Instead of the neatly lined halls of lockers and classrooms filled with bright colors and happy teachers, it was a lot more…militant. The teachers didn’t even seem to like the kids all that much, remaining constantly on guard for drugs being smuggled in or people playing with knives. There were a few teachers that were really great, but for every good one, there was one that was clearly bored out of their skull to be there.

At first, Barry had thought that Mr. Sanders was the former. Mr. Sanders was a rotating teacher, he came in for a year at each of the inner city schools, and this year was their turn. He’d been pretty great at first – keeping Barry a little after class to talk about how good his work was, offering to direct him towards scholarship opportunities – and it had really felt like he was back in his old school again. Except that Mr. Sanders kept keeping Barry after, offering him private lessons, telling him he could really write wonderful novels, no matter how many times Barry tried to explain that he was more interested in the sciences. 

He also really didn’t like the way Mr. Sanders kept putting his hands on Barry’s shoulders. His best friend – well, Iris’ dad had been a cop, anyway. He’d seen all the videos about creepy grown-ups; he just hadn’t expected to ever _meet_ one. 

At first, he brushed it all off, figuring he was just being paranoid. New school, different customs, right?

Except he was pretty sure if he’d gone home to tell Mom and Dad – _no, not thinking about that, never thinking about that_ – that some teacher at school kept touching the back of his neck and assigning him books that he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to read yet as extra credit, they’d freak out.

He tried to tell Mick, but he couldn’t.

Every time he thought about it, over dinner or sitting by the TV or curled up under the blankets while Mick builds something, his throat just closed right up.

It wasn’t _fair_ , he thought to himself. It wasn’t like he wanted to keep it a secret or anything; the guy was obviously a creep and Barry wasn’t going to let him do anything, but someone should know. Mick, the principal, one of the other teachers…

He couldn’t say a word.

He started having nightmares again; it wasn’t like the ones about the man in the lightning or what happened to Mom had ever really gone away, but he was _used_ to those. He knew how to go back to sleep afterwards. Even the dreams where Mick was murdered by something moving too fast to see, a bolt of lightning from the blue, he knew how to deal with those – just go in, make sure Mick’s still breathing, grab a glass of water from the fridge, go back to bed. 

The nightmares are different now. Instead of Mick dying, it’s Mick yelling at him, telling him he’s a liar and delusional and that all those shrinks were right about him, telling him he should pack up his things because Mick’s gonna take him back to CPS and pick up a newer, better brother. Joe and Iris, giving him hugs one day and getting pissed the next because he just won’t stop bothering them with his stupid “made up stories” about the lightning man. Joe explaining to him that it’s normal for boys his age to make up silly stories instead of facing reality, that it’s just trauma, that he needs to get over it and admit that Barry’s dad _did_ kill his mom when Barry keeps trying to tell him that he didn’t. Iris sighing dramatically and saying “not _again_ , Barry, can’t we just play a normal game without you mentioning it?” 

That’s why they let CPS take him away, after all, because they thought he was a no-good liar that just wouldn’t stop lying. He’d tried to pretend that he was fine, say all the right things to the CPS guys like Joe urged him to, but he _couldn’t_ bring himself to say that his father was a murderer. He _wouldn’t_ say it. 

_It wasn’t true._

Not that anyone ever believed him.

Mick probably wouldn’t believe him either.

Barry ended up bugging Mick about signing him up for a bunch of afterschool classes and apologetically told Mr. Sanders that he was way, _way_ too busy for private lessons or anything like that. It was even mostly not a lie. 

Mick and Len had to work double-time that year to get money for the extra classes, which Barry felt really bad about, but it was better than them kicking him out because he couldn’t be trusted. Besides, they liked pulling heists.

Now, though, Barry was fifteen and Mr. Sanders was back at his school again, still teaching the middle-school-aged kids at the south end of the school. Still smiling a bit too wide, still patting certain kids on the shoulder, still offering private lessons to a select few – a few that Barry can recognize, with an older, more jaundiced eye, as kids who have problems at home or who are obviously uncomfortable around the other kids. Easy bait.

But things are _different_ now. Barry’s not twelve any more, for one thing. It’s been four years and the only thing Mick’s ever yelled at him about is not knowing where the fire exits are in any new safe house they move to, and sometimes when he’s terrified that Barry’s going to get hurt. Mick will literally burn down CPS if they try to take him away, Barry knows that; there’s _no chance_ he’ll abandon Barry there, even if Barry did turn out to be a pathological liar. 

And he has Len, now, and Lisa, too. He’d been horribly insensitive the first time he’d run into the bathroom when Len had been taking a shower, but Len had (eventually) forgiven him for all his stupid questions. Len believed him about the lightning and about his dad, without even asking, the very first one ever; Len hated secrets, but only because he was afraid that people would get hurt because of them, not because the person was lying. 

Len was a bit of a pathological liar himself, actually, particularly when it came to telling the truth about if he was hurt. Barry wasn’t sure if he somehow hadn’t noticed that he’d gotten stabbed or if he was just so used to covering it up that he instinctively denied it. Mick didn’t kick him out for it, just walloped him one upside the head, called him a stubborn idiot, and doted on him for the next few days. Occasionally pointed at Len and said loudly to Barry, “Don’t be this guy when you grow up.”

Len and Mick would have his back through _anything_ , and they vastly preferred it when he was honest and straightforward with them.

“Save the lying for the pigs and the crooks,” Len would sometimes tell him. “We’re _partners_ , all four of us. We don’t need to lie.”

After the whole shower incident, Barry knew that Len would never say that you don’t lie to family, but that’s what he _meant_. Len and Lisa’s dad clearly didn’t count as family, that’s all.

So this time around, he goes home and tells Mick and Len the whole story. They listen quietly, Mick’s face going a bit red and steamed, Len’s face sinking into the thoughtful expressionless mask it tended to be when he was planning something. 

Barry concluded by reiterating that he hadn’t actually _seen_ anything go wrong.

“Don’t worry about that,” Len said, voice cool and distant. “If he’s a creep, there’s probably some evidence at his house. We’ll crack it during school hours tomorrow, see what we can find.”

Mr. Sanders gets called out of class the next day.

Apparently his house was burning down, and the police wanted to talk to him about a box full of pictures they’d found placed safely out of harm’s way right there on the front porch. 

Barry skips lunch and brings a plate of cookies to all the kids in Mr. Sanders’ class that are going to be doing their English lit with Mrs. Gracie, who’s pretty great, from now on. 

He’s not even a _little_ bit sorry.


	5. 5.	They Support You No Matter What

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5\. They Support You No Matter What

If there’s one thing that Len and Mick have drummed into Barry’s head like a religion, it’s not to get caught. Don’t let the pigs see you do something wrong. Don’t run into anyone Family-affiliated somewhere that isn’t public. And above all else, _don’t_ let on to anyone from your old life where you are, because they will call CPS down so fast your head will spin.

Barry remembered the horrible visits to the social worker and the shrink, the painfully fake “cheery” office décor, the way they shooed him out of the room and told Joe that he wasn’t going to take Barry home, the fake smiles on the faces of his soon-to-be foster parents – he’d been out of his mind with terror the entire time. He was in no hurry to go through _that_ ever again. Besides, he was less than half a year away from emancipation, and Len had promised that he’d personally take him in to Iron Heights to visit Dad at that point (provided there were no outstanding warrants, which wasn’t likely to be a problem – Len was getting disturbingly good at planning out undetectable heists now that he knew how to read a blueprint). So really, it wasn’t that hard a rule to follow. Sure, he sometimes got the urge to go back to his old neighborhood, but he resists. He doesn’t look anyone up. He doesn’t call anyone. Not like he’d had a lot of friends stick around after the whole incident anyway. He even refuses sign up for field trips that would take them too close to places people might recognize him. (Okay, he goes there when there’s a potential extraordinary incident, but that’s different and also secret so it’s not like anyone should be able to find him anyway.)

He is _very good_ at just moving on with his life.

Hakuna matata. 

So, naturally, when they hold the Quiz Bowl tournament at his school for like the first time ever and people from other schools start streaming in and he sees from across the cafeteria a familiar head of dark hair with a very familiar bounce in her step, he promptly shouts out, “Iris?” like a _total dweeb_.

She freezes. “ _Barry_?” she gasps and he tries to look around to see if there’s a valid escape route. He manages to identify four and start edging towards the nearest one when Iris – who is a champion-level people-dodger, he should have remembered that – tackles him into a hug and he can’t help but return it. He’s missed her _so much_.

She’s crying. He’s crying. Naresh proves himself a true friend by dragging the two of them out of the cafeteria where everyone seems to have universally assumed that they just got back together after a bad break-up and started applauding and shoves them into an abandoned classroom with a promise that he’d watch the door for them while they “got over themselves”. He also makes a comment about remembering the importance of waiting till you were married, because _Naresh_.

Iris waits until Naresh is gone to give the door a bit of a weird look. “Who’s that kid think he is?” she asks, still sniffling. Barry shrugs. It would take way too long to explain all the issues you develop while figuring out you were born the wrong gender in a fairly old-school traditional Indian family and, to be honest, he isn’t going to pretend he understands all the nuances himself so he just goes with whatever Naresh tells him. Or maybe she's just referring to Naresh being rude, but that's just part of his DNA and is therefore utterly inexplicable. 

“I can’t believe I _found_ you,” she says, turning back to him.

Barry blurts out, “You were _looking_?” which in retrospect he feels was a bad decision because it makes Iris both burst into tears again and also kick him.

“Of course I was looking for you, you _dork_ ,” she says. “You _know_ how my dad talks about life on the streets, I’m been afraid of a worst case scenario for _years_ , I thought you were _dead_ …”

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.

“You can’t tell your dad you found me,” Barry says in a rush. “Listen, Iris, it’s _really_ important, you can’t tell him. It’ll just make everything more complicated.”

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” she asked, eyes narrowing, already gearing up for a fight. Barry’s heart hurts with how much he’s _missed_ her, with her fierce protectiveness and her kind heart.

“No, no, not at all,” Barry assures her. “I’m actually a junior already, I got moved ahead a grade, but I’m still getting really good grades. One of my teachers says I might be eligible for a handful of scholarships…”

“That’s great, Barry!” Iris says, hugging him again. “That’s really great. But…how are you even here, in school? How do you get the money?”

_I’m not always entirely sure but I’m sure if you looked in the pile of unsolved cases on your dad’s desk you might be able to figure it out_ , Barry thinks wryly. He can’t tell Iris that, of course, she has the same rigid, upstanding moral code as her father; that’s one of the reasons he loves her.

“I’ve got foster parents,” he says, temporizing. Technically it’s more of a foster _sibling_ sort of situation, but Mick and Len put food on the table and worried about his grades, so that was basically the same as parents, right? “I’m, uh,” his eyes dart around, “uh, I’m, uh, I’m in witness protection and that’s why your dad can’t know about it!” 

Either he’d gotten better at lying (doubtful) or Iris had missed him so much she was willing to ignore reality (more likely), but she just nods. “But you’re okay?” she presses. “You’re safe, you’re happy?”

Barry nods frantically. “Very safe,” he assures her. “Very happy. Happier now that I’ve seen you again, of course – oh, no, don’t start crying again, did I say something? I totally said something, I don’t even…”

She hits him again. “I’m crying because I’m _happy_ , you _jerk_ ,” she says. “Now I need to fix my make-up, kick some Quiz Bowl ass, and then you’re going to tell me _everything_. And you’re not leaving my sight the entire time.”

“I’m not going into the _girl’s bathroom_ , Iris!” Barry yelps.

She cracks up, wiping at her eyes. “I have a hand mirror, Bear,” she says, giggling. “I can fix my make-up in here.”

“Oh,” he says. “I…totally knew that.”

True enough, Iris dominates the Quiz Bowl tournament, Barry cheering her on from the sidelines, and he finally gets her to agree to go home with promises that he’ll meet up with her again. Because there’s no way in hell he’s introducing her to Len and Mick until he’s had time to prepare them for it.

Their reaction is about as calm and measured as he expected: they take one look at each other and start trying to figure out if there’s a high school in another state he can transfer to.

“Iris can keep a secret,” Barry argues. 

“And if she can’t, Mick’s gonna have to go to prison for first degree arson,” Len points out. “ _Again_. And your little friend ain’t gonna be too happy with you when her house is in cinders. I’m just saying.”

“I really don’t want to transfer school so late in the year,” Barry says, putting on his best pleading expression. “Please, I’m _almost_ sixteen. We can keep Joe back long enough for me to get that far. C’mon, guys. It’s what I want.”

They both look deeply doubtful, but – reluctantly – they concede. 

Barry spends the rest of the night squished on the couch between two sulking criminals watching _Jeopardy_ until they cheer up. He’s not sure when he got old enough for the two of them to trust his judgment, but he’s happy that it happened. He _knew_ he could count on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters after this - the "and one" and an epilogue.


	6. +1.  Sometimes All of These Traits Are Also a Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> +1. Sometimes All of These Traits Are Also a Problem

Iris doesn’t actually tell Joe about Barry at any point; she’s very good about that. 

She does insist on seeing him more often, which he’s totally okay with – Barry’s still a bit wary about introducing her to Len and Mick until Lisa gets back from her “business trip”; she’s definitely the more socially adept and charming member of the family. Well, Len is good when he tries, but Barry can read Len’s combative stance and figures tact and charm are going to be the last thing on his mind when he meets what he (incorrectly!) perceives as rivals for Barry’s affection. (Of course, Len would argue that he’s just protecting Mick’s interests, but Barry feels all soft and fluffy and knows exactly how big a liar Len is.)

Unfortunately – and they really should have known better about this, but in Barry’s defense it’s been literally years since he’s seen Joe and he’d forgotten about that paranoid streak of his – Iris sneaking out at odd hours to go down to the Central City slum district to regularly meet with a boy for a few months sets off every parental alarm Joe has. 

At least, that’s why Barry assumes Joe followed Iris. Maybe he just does it sometimes, what does Barry know? He assumes most parents/siblings don’t react to finding out their baby bro is maybe going to get laid by giving him a box of condoms and a threat to have Len give him “The Talk” in long and excruciating detail if he even _thinks_ about touching another human being (gender unimportant) without one. Mick is awesome. Mick is also 100% correct that, having only barely survived Len’s No Drugs Really I Mean It lecture, Barry would do literally anything to avoid another one. 

Lisa had managed to seal the deal on Barry’s now almost religious devotion to safe sex by inviting some of her friends over to loudly have a conversation about men and babies – Barry and Mick had decided discretion was the better course of valor and hid in the closet the entire time the girls had taken over their living room. Girls: Barry will never understand their fearsome might. Ever. Life was so much more straightforward if you preemptively cowered before them. 

He’d been meeting up with Iris in McFeely Park, which had a reliable ice cream truck and a fairly low number of drug addicts and was totally safe during the day as long as you don’t piss off the pigeons. They even had a pretty private corner, a few benches to sit in over in the corner by the intersection of Francis and Westchester; it was one of Barry’s favorite hang outs with his friends. Iris had shown up at her usual time – right after school, plus the time for the bus ride – and had jumped over to give him her usual hug.

Joe had stormed straight over and yanked her away before recognizing Barry.

That got them to now, when Barry was having the life squeezed out of him (fair, he was hugging Joe back pretty hard, he’d really loved the guy growing up and it was like he hadn’t changed in the last five years) and was also worrying about how the hell he was going to explain this. Iris, maybe they’d be okay with her, but Mick wasn’t exactly what you’d call fond of the police. Len’s views on the police were unrepeatable in polite company, for obvious reasons. 

“Oh my god, Barry, my god,” Joe was saying. “You’re _okay_. Iris, why didn’t you tell me you’d found him?”

“That was on me,” Barry quickly interjects, not wanting Iris to get in trouble. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“Barry, you know I’ve been looking for you ever since you went missing, right?” Joe said, looking him in the eye – Barry was nearly as tall as he was, now. Wow, when did that happen? “We’ve all been so worried about you – me, and Iris, and your dad…”

Barry immediately feels the stab of guilt for not having told them all earlier, for making them all worry about him, despite all the good reasons for it; at least he _did_ end up communicating with his dad or he would’ve felt so much worse when Joe brought that up. It also puts his hackles up a little bit; he knows Joe, he _knew_ Joe, and he’s pretty sure Joe didn’t mean to do it because Joe is awesome and amazing, but anything smacking of emotional manipulation automatically puts his teeth on edge. 

“I know,” he says apologetically. “I just couldn’t, that’s all.”

Joe pulls away and his eyes are wet. “C’mon,” he says, squeezing Barry’s shoulder. “Let’s go, my car’s parked down the street.”

“Go?” Barry says blankly. “Go where?”

“Back home,” Joe says, as if it’s obvious. “You can tell me and Iris everything over some pizza and hot chocolate, just like we used to; how’s that sound?”

For a second, it does sound _extremely_ tempting. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to hang out with them for a few hours? He’s missed Joe _so much_ ; he remembers all the times his mom and dad would drop him off at Iris’ house to play while they went out to the theater or something for date night, and Joe would always order the really awesome pizza with all the weirdo toppings Barry liked and they would watch TV, sports and movies and cartoons. But Barry doesn’t go home with any strangers without letting Mick and Len know first, and he knows they wouldn’t consider a text enough of a warning in this situation. So he shakes his head. “No, not today,” he says regretfully. “Maybe another day?”

Joe seems surprised. “C’mon, Bar! I’ll order the fancy pizza on our drive back, the one you used to like so much. You still like all those crazy toppings, right?”

Barry ducks his head and laughs a little. Yep, same old Joe. Other than the height thing, it’s as if none of the last five years have happened and his parents are just out for a cup of coffee. “Yeah, I do,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and taking a few instinctive steps to follow Joe as he draws them off towards the alley. “But I gotta ask permission before I head home with any strangers; you know how it is, Joe.”

“I’m hardly a stranger,” Joe says reasonably. “Besides, your foster parents can come pick you up from my house; I want to talk to them anyway, check them out.”

Barry can think of literally nothing worse than Len or Mick having to pick him up on what Joe considers to be home ground. He’s pretty sure his face reflects that, judging by the worried look Iris is giving him and the way Joe’s started frowning.

“You’re not in any trouble, are you?” Iris asks again. “They’re not keeping you from seeing us, are they? Is that why I haven’t met them yet?”

“Oh, no, that’s not it at all –”

“Barry, you know we care about you,” Joe says. “We just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I know that –”

“You really should come home with us,” Iris says hopefully. “It’ll only be for a few hours, and we were planning on hanging out at the library for at least that long, right?”

“But –”

“Our house is a lot safer than the library _here_ ,” Joe says, looking at the nearby building a little disdainfully like it wasn’t Barry’s favorite hang-out spot; when Joe looks around, Barry’s suddenly aware of all the drunks hanging around, all the trash on the ground, the mangy pigeons, all of it. His shoulders start inching up to his ears in shame. Joe’s probably also noticed the fact that his shirt’s a bit too large and has a hole on the side, that his jeans are a bit too short, how old and raggedy his shoes are. It’s not that he doesn’t have better clothing – Lisa takes him shopping on a regular basis! Len and Mick are very good at making sure he has all the spending money he wants! – it’s just that he grabbed his comfiest outfit, but somehow when Joe’s looking him up and down it feels like he did something wrong by wearing it. 

“C’mon, Barry,” Iris says, tugging on his sleeve. “We’ll even drive you home later, if you like. Right, Dad?”

“Of course we will,” Joe says. They’re _coaxing_ him like he’s an addict in need of an intervention. Barry wonders in a bitter moment if Iris _had_ told Joe about him, if this was planned out, but no, she’d been just as surprised as he had been when Joe had marched over, and Joe just as clearly hadn’t known who she was meeting. 

He pulled away from both of them. “Guys, I’m not coming with you today,” he says firmly. Mick’s rules of interpersonal relationships: establish firm boundaries early on and enforce them, and don’t let anyone give you shit about sticking to them. “My family doesn’t like it when I go places without letting them know where I’m going, and you’re not family.”

Joe looks stricken. “Bar, you know I was trying to take you in, to adopt you, when you disappeared, right?” he says softly. “I was trying my hardest and it was going to work, we got the papers two months after you were gone; I wouldn’t have left you in the system any longer than I had to. We were going to _be_ your family.”

Barry bites his lip. He hadn’t known that. “Really?”

“Yeah, Bar,” Joe says, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. I just want to catch up with you. It’s been nearly five years. I’m only asking for a few hours…”

Barry wavers and Joe draws him another few steps in the direction of his car. Mick was going to be so upset. He really shouldn’t. But he’d caused Joe and Iris so much stress, so many tears, over the years…he could catch a bus back and explain the whole thing to Mick and Len later, make it all seem nice and reasonable…he’d missed them both _so much_ and they clearly wanted him to…after all, it wasn’t like they were Family members or anything, it wasn’t like that; they weren’t going to keep him against his will or anything…

“You get your paws off of him, you goddamn _pig_ ,” a familiar voice rasps from the darkness of the alleyway that somehow Barry finds they’ve gone nearly halfway down, out of sight of the main part of the park. He draws away in alarm as Mick steps out of the shadows, face twisted in rage. How had he gotten drawn so far away from where the public was? He knew better than that!

Also, he should have guessed that Mick was following him. He’d told him he was meeting with Iris, after all, and Mick was still concerned about her.

Joe starts back, startled, and goes for his gun. 

He manages to get his hand on it when there’s the audible click of a safety being disengaged right behind him. “Move another inch and you get one in the skull,” Len drawls, his voice tight and cold.

“Snart,” Joe hisses. 

Huh. Apparently Len’s a bit more well-known than he’d let on to Barry. 

Barry can’t believe that that’s what he’s focusing on right now, but he’s come to accept that adrenaline does weird things to your brain. This couldn’t be happening. This _couldn’t be happening_ …

“This isn’t any business of yours, Snart,” Joe says. “Or your arsonist friend. You want money, you can take my wallet if you want. But leave the kids out of this.”

Iris makes a move like she’s gonna do something dumb like interfere, so Barry takes a few hurried steps over and grabs her shoulders, turning to look at the tableau before him. Oh god, oh god, oh god…

“I don’t give a damn about your money,” Mick snarls. “You trying to lure my baby brother into a car with you, that seems like it’s my business.” 

“Your baby – who, _Barry_?” Joe gapes at Mick. 

“Barry, what’s he talking about?” Iris asks.

This was _so_ not how he'd wanted Iris to meet Len and Mick. Much less Joe. That meeting he’d been hoping would take place, oh, _never_ , but certainly not until he was of age, preferably 18 or 21. 

“Len, can you maybe put the gun down?” Barry says hopefully. “I’m sure we can talk this out like adults.”

“ _These_ are the people you’re staying with?” Joe says indignantly. “Barry, these are criminals!”

“Thanks, Joe, I know that,” Barry says, trying to keep his patience and desperately hoping he was neither about to burst into tears or start yelling, because that was not the way to handle a situation with volatile tempers. “Guys, _please_ put the guns down?”

“Sorry, kid, no can do,” Len says, reaching out and grabbing the gun from where Joe’s fingers have frozen a few inches away. He tosses it to Mick who automatically checks it before pointing it right between Joe’s eyes. 

“Mick! Put that down _right now_!”

Everyone ignores him. Once Mick’s in place, Len pulls back, keeping his own gun at the ready but no longer aimed to kill, and he quickly frisks Joe for additional weapons. Not finding any, he puts his gun back up.

Iris is trying to get loose from where Barry’s holding on to her. “Barry! They’re pointing guns _at my dad_ ,” Iris hisses at him. “Why are you so calm? We have to _do_ something!”

“He went for his gun first!” Barry snaps back at her, because A, he is _not calm_ and B, he didn’t need this sort of pressure when he’s trying to keep Mick from blowing up at someone. “And they only came out after I _told_ you guys I wasn’t going with you and you kept pushing anyway!”

“You’re siding with _them_?”

“They’re my _family_!” 

“ _We’re_ your family!”

“You haven’t been my family since I was eleven and you thought I was _delusional_ ,” Barry yells back, pulling away from her, all of that old resentment rushing back in. Iris’ eyes go wide. “Both of you! You _never_ listened to me!”

“C’mon, Bar,” Mick says, his own anger not cooled but at least checked by the sight of Barry in distress. “Let’s go home.”

“He’s not going anywhere with you!” Joe exclaims.

“You bet your ass he is,” Mick says. “You try to call for back-up, we’ll be out of state before you even think about it.”

“I don’t want to leave the state!” Barry says, alarmed. “And Joe, I _am_ going with them.”

“They’re not your family, Bar,” Joe says, looking at Barry entreatingly. Iris is looking at him like she has no idea who he is. A sick feeling is lurking in his stomach at that look. “They’re _criminals_. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been staying with them, they’re not your legal guardians; they have no authority over you at all. You can come home with us, where you’ll be safe.”

“I’m safe with _them_ , Joe,” Barry says, trying to explain. “I’m _happy_ , okay? I don’t want you to arrest them, and I don’t want them to shoot you.” He glared at the two of them. Len’s leaning against the wall, his legs spread, one hand supporting the other, ready to keep his gun up for as long as he needs to. “As for the two of you – you’re not going to shoot him. No, not even non-fatally; I will be _very upset_ if you do. So much sulking and crying and yelling, you will not even believe. Seriously, put the guns down; _you are not helping_.”

“So sad,” Len says. “And yet not happening. I told you meeting with the girl was bad news, Bar.”

“Iris is my friend,” Barry says stubbornly. He _thinks_ she still is, anyway. He carefully doesn’t look at her to see her expression; five years apart and only six reunion meetings, and now his family was pointing guns at her father – that might be enough to kill even a friendship as old as theirs, but he hopes not. “This is how it’s going to go, okay, guys? We’re all going to put down the guns and go our separate ways, and Joe isn’t going to arrest either of you.”

“Like hell I’m not,” Joe says. “Not sure if you remember, Bar, but these guys are criminals and I’m a cop. Catching bastards like them is my _job_. Do they have you stealing for them?”

“Bar doesn’t steal,” Mick says stiffly. “He doesn’t want to do it, so he doesn’t; we don’t make him do _anything_ he doesn’t want to, and fuck you for implying otherwise.”

Joe’s face is ugly with anger, just like Mick’s is. “Maybe you wouldn’t,” he says slowly, every word dripping with anger, and suddenly Barry knows whatever’s about to come out of his mouth is going to be bad. “But your friend Snart here, he’s got something of a family history going the other way, doesn’t he?”

Len’s face has been its usual blank, controlled mask up until that point, and seriously, Barry can’t believe Joe just went there; he wouldn’t be surprised if Len pistol-whipped him for that comment. Instead, Len’s face just spasms for a hot second before going back to normal. He’s controlling himself for Barry’s sake. 

This whole stupid clusterfuck is Barry’s fault.

“Joe, that was uncalled for,” Barry says firmly. “Don’t say anything like that again, _ever_. We’re going to all calm down, okay? Guys? Calm?”

“You’re not going anywhere with these guys, Bar,” Joe says. “You’re coming home with us.”

“Joe, I’m _not_ going home with you,” Barry says, biting his lip almost until he’s bleeding. “Even if you dragged me there or kidnapped me, I’d just run away, okay? _I’m not coming with you_.”

Joe half turns to him in surprise. “I wouldn’t _kidnap_ you!”

“You were all but halfway there, okay?” Barry says. “I told you I didn’t want to come with you, and you kept pushing anyway. Adults who haven't seen kids in five years don't get to do that. You’re in the wrong here, okay, Joe? I know you wanted me there because you’d be able to confront my foster parents on your home ground.” He holds up his hands to forestall Joe’s protest. “But, listen, there’s no reason we can’t meet somewhere neutral, talk about this. You promise not to arrest them, they promise not to shoot you, we all walk away happy, okay?”

“You really want to go with _them_?” Iris asks.

“I really, really do,” Barry tells her. He wants to be home again, in the safehouse on Marshall with all the comfy couches and the crappy fan unit and the pile of DVDs that’s bigger than he is, so badly it _hurts_. You don’t know what you have until you see the risk of it being snatched away from you. “I don’t want them to get arrested.”

“Oh, a badge like Joe here wouldn’t _arrest_ us,” Len drawls. His voice could douse a hundred of Mick’s hottest fires, it’s so cold. “He’d find some reason to discharge that service weapon of his and put us in the ground. Say he was afraid for his life and had no choice, and then you’d have no other options about where to go.”

“I wouldn’t do that to Barry,” Joe says stiffly.

“Wouldn’t you?” Len hums a little, clearly disbelieving him. 

“Guys, you’re both trying to protect _me_ , right?” Barry says desperately. “So let’s go with what _I_ want here. And what I want is for everyone to put down their guns and meet at, uh, Frankie’s Diner down on South Street tomorrow at 7PM. No back-up cops, nothing, and we talk about things, okay?”

“Frankie’s?” Mick says, scowling. “That’s a Family joint, Bar; you know I don’t like you going there.”

“Yes, but they also have a history of shooting on-duty cops that piss them off,” Barry says reasonably. “So Joe will have no choice but to come in civies and without a wire, _right_ , Joe?”

“Right,” Joe says. He doesn’t sound pleased.

“And they don’t particularly like the two of you, either,” Barry continues. “So you won’t be able to get away with anything _against_ Joe, either. Perfect neutral ground. Tomorrow. 7PM. We’ll talk, family only. Joe, you can ask any questions you want about my living situation and we’ll answer honestly, and in return you neither try to arrest Len and Mick or take me away from them, okay? I’d really like to graduate from my high school here, guys.” 

“Fine,” Joe reluctantly grits out through clenched teeth.

“We even think you’re gonna double cross us, pig,” Mick says. “We’ll be out of state faster than you can blink, and I’ll set your house on fire on my way out, you hear me?”

Len doesn’t say anything, just takes a step back and fades out of sight into the shadows. Barry walks over to where Mick is; Mick drops an warm hand on his shoulder. He looks at Iris.

She smiles at him, eyes a little wet. “You’re really okay?” she asks. “They’re good guys? Uh, good to you?”

“They’re great, Iris, really,” Barry assures her. “This isn’t how I wanted you to meet, but they’re really, really great. I promise. I’ll see you two tomorrow, right?”

She nods, dashing over to Joe and wrapping her arms around his middle. “Tomorrow, Barry,” Joe says, hugging her to him. “You stay safe till then, okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Mick draws him further down the other intersection, clambers onto his bike, tossing Joe’s service weapon down on the ground as he does. Barry grabs his helmet, glances back at Joe and Iris who are still lingering there, their invitation still clearly open. A window into a life he might have had: a good school like he was used to, fancy pizza in the evenings, Joe's stern affection, all his old friends at his old school, Iris smiling at him...Joe still thinking his father was guilty of murder, having to sneak visits to Iron Heights instead of setting up a correspondence system, hiding his investigations into the paranormal instead of having help in them, none of his new friends, no Mick, no Len, no Lisa...

Barry turns away, wraps his arms around Mick’s waist. 

They’re violent and they’re possessive and maybe they’re a little crazy, but they’re his family. He’s not giving them up for _anything_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, there will be an epilogue!


	7. Epilogue: Frankie's Diner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: Frankie's Diner

Much to Barry’s surprise, Joe and Iris actually do turn up at Frankie’s Diner the next day. They’re there about forty minutes early – Len totally called it when he said Joe would try to get there early to case the place – but Barry’s friend-of-a-friend from school, Darya, works there as a waitress and texts him a heads-up so that Barry and Mick can head over from where they’ve been loitering.

Len doesn’t attend.

“Why’s Len not coming?” Barry asks Mick as they walk up to the entrance. “Is it just because of the whole cop thing?” Words scarcely described Len’s hatred of the boys in blue. What little Barry's heard about Len's dad, he can't blame him.

“He’s just busy,” Mick says shortly, putting his hands into his jacket pockets and then taking them back out again, a sure sign of nervousness.

“Is it because I said it was family only?” Barry persisted. “Because I meant him, too, you know.”

Mick smiles crookedly at him. “Don’t worry, we’ll beat the concept into his stupid ass one day,” he promises. “But no, I’m serious; he really is just busy. Something came up that he had to do right away. He says he’ll try to come by when he’s done if we’re still here by then.”

Barry covers his face. “Tell me he’s not going to do a heist,” he hissed. “Right before meeting my _best friend’s cop dad_.”

Mick shrugs. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t tell you.” He pushes the door to the diner open. “After you, kid.”

Barry groaned and walked inside, waving at Iris, who beamed and waved back. He had no idea how she’d managed to convince her dad to let her come to this meeting – it was a mob-affiliated diner, for god’s sake! – but from the way Joe was pointedly not looking at her, Barry was going to guess that she was in for a lot of silent treatment for the next few weeks as a result. Well, he'd always known that what Iris really wanted, Iris got; good to see some things never changed. Also, she was still smiling at him! 

Actually, even aside from the swell of my-oldest-friend-doesn't-hate-me relief, Barry quickly becomes deeply relieved that Iris is there, because she and Barry literally carry about 80% of the conversation between the two of them, chattering almost frantically about school and friends and music while Joe and Mick glare at each other and attempt to communicate entirely in grunts and monosyllabic responses to each other’s increasingly pointed questions.

Joe had brought a _questionnaire_ , oh god. Maybe it was a good thing Len hadn’t attended; some of those questions were definitely aimed at abusive households.

Iris gave him “I’m so sorry” looks on a regular basis. Barry tended to return them whenever Mick answered a question with “Who the fuck cares?” and, in one instance, just plain old bursting out laughing when Joe had asked about the source of their family’s income.

Which, fair, was a really stupid question.

“This is still going better than I thought,” he whispers to Iris at one point when Darya shows up with a refill of the coffee and has managed, wonderful person that she is, to distract both adults with a series of rapid-fire questions about sugar and creamer. 

“Yeah,” she whispered back, reaching under the table to squeeze his hand. “No one’s been _shot_ yet.”

“That’s what I was using as my standard!” Barry whispers back enthusiastically, squeezing back. 

“Seriously, Bear, I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

“I can’t believe this is actually _working_.”

“That too.”

Sometime after their order of pie and ice cream arrives from the kitchen – and the series of questions about Barry’s adequate nutrition that had come after Mick had placed the order, which had resulted in Mick pulling out his typical rant about the need for fresh fruit and vegetables and Iris starting to giggle madly right around the “delusional people who think take-out is an adequate source of nutritional value” line for reasons that Barry could guess – the conversation turns to custody and visitation.

“I’ll admit you’re not mistreating him,” Joe admits with an expression like he’s biting into a lemon. “Or at least that you’re not admitting that you are –” Barry kicks him under the table and he sees Iris’ elbow move in a quick jab to his side. “– but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about him living with you. There’s a lot of issues that associating with criminals could cause him in the future, going forward.”

“I have a summer internship – a _paid_ internship! – at Mercury Labs,” Barry points out. “I think more people will pay attention to that part of my resume.” 

“Really?” Iris says, brightening at the possibility of a change in subject. “What type of work will you be doing?”

“Actually, funnily enough –”

“ _Regardless_ ,” Joe says stubbornly. “When it comes to getting a job, you need references and a network and you're not going to be able to provide him with that, at least not above the board. I know a lot of people and I’d love to help Barry out, but as a cop, I can’t associate with known criminals."

"What's your point?" Mick says suspiciously. 

"I’d like Barry to come over to our house by himself sometimes."

“Luckily, your concern is not going to be much of a problem,” Len says from the door where he’s just walked in, luckily before Mick can get out the ‘Hell no’ and stream of profanity he was clearly about to say. Len looks tired, but he comes over to their table. Barry scoots in to try to let him have a seat on their side of the booth, but Len just grabs a chair and drags it over. Probably wiser, given that Mick takes up about half a booth just by himself.

Joe looks at Len every bit as suspiciously as Mick was looking at him earlier. “How's it not going to be a problem exactly?”

Len smirks. “I just checked up on the files the CCPD has on Mick and me,” he drawls. “You don’t have so much as an open warrant, and all your backdated evidence got messed up after that incident with the crime lab. Won’t hold up in court.”

“There’s a least two open cases where I got leads against you,” Joe points out. “And another four for your arsonist buddy.”

Len’s smirk widens. “No, you really don’t. Not if you’re talking about the stuff that was on your desk, anyhow.”

“You went – you _broke into the police department_?” Joe exclaims. Barry’s happy that Joe said it, because otherwise he was going to be the one to say it. What the _hell_ , Len?

Len rolled his eyes. “No, officer,” he drawls in his slowest, most insulting tones. “I went into the police department to speak with an officer, as is my right as a law-abiding citizen. You want to accuse me of breaking and entering or destroying evidence, you gotta find some due cause to back that up. Either way, though, you’ve got nothing on us right now. No criminals, no problem, right?”

Joe crossed his arms. “Even ignoring that you’ve all but confessed to a crime _right now_ ,” he says through gritted teeth. “I still can’t associate with people with bad reputations. No matter how much evidence you destroy, you guys have about as a bad reputation as you get, and that means you’re off limits.”

Len gave him a skeptical look. “You’re CCPD Criminal Investigations, right? I know two blood-sworn Santini men and at least three guys associated in varying degrees with the Darbiniyan Family in your department alone. What do you call when they’re meeting with their bosses? Getting lost?”

Joe’s teeth are grinding. “I’m not saying there’s not some issues with the department –”

“Saying there’s corruption in Central City is like saying evolution’s a real thing,” Mick puts in. “It’s only a theory by scientific standards, and that means it’s universally accepted as true.”

Barry can’t help but grin smugly; Mick totally got that from him. Iris rolls her eyes at him but is clearly suppressing a smile herself.

“Given the amount of mob activity in Central, the police department administration and internal investigations have decided at this time that it makes more sense to have some people monitoring the situation with the Families so that we can get a heads up if there are going to be problems,” Joe says, looking deeply aggravated and clearly reciting from some interdepartmental policy meeting or another.

“Good,” Len says, amused. “You handle hanging out with us in order to see Barry in just the same way.”

"Nice idea," Joe snorts. “But you'll find you’re not as concerning a figure as the mob –”

“Actually, you’ll find we are,” Len cuts in. Mick turns and frowns at him. Len blithely ignores him, which is a giant red flag for ‘I did something you’re not going to like without telling you and you’re going to get upset at me later when we’re not in front of other people’ in Barry’s mind. “I made a little agreement with the other, ah, _influential_ families in town, and they’re recognizing us as having a little corner of their universe. Their people won’t turn ours in, which _includes_ the people they have in your department. Since there's departmental policy already in place to handle associations with Families, you can tell the rest of your friends at the prescient that you’re just, ah, ‘monitoring the situation', as you've so quaintly put it.”

Oh yeah, Mick’s going to be upset later on. _Barry’s_ going to be upset later on. What in the world is Len thinking today? Breaking into the CCPD headquarters to destroy evidence on literally one night’s worth of planning? Cutting a deal with the Families, which he despises, promising them god only knows what without consulting anyone?

Oh, right. He’s thinking of Barry.

Joe’s spluttering angrily and Mick’s fists are clenched under the table and Len has his arms crossed defensively, so thank god for Iris, who pipes up, “So it sounds like it’s all worked out! We’ll meet up, all four of us in the beginning, and maybe we’ll work our way down to solo visits eventually. Also, does anyone know where they get their ice cream? This vanilla is amazing.”

“There’s a wholesaler a few blocks away,” Barry immediately says, taking the conversational parley and running with it. “You think their vanilla is good, you _have_ to try their butterscotch caramel, my god, it’s amazing. They sell it by the pint, two bucks each.”

“Wait, two dollars for a pint of ice cream?” Joe says incredulously. “They charge seven up at the supermarket!”

“Wholesaler,” Barry says, shrugging. “They’re from this neighborhood originally; they know what sells.”

“It’ll make it much cheaper next time there’s a department party,” Iris says temptingly.

Joe points at her. “You’re still in trouble, missy. Don’t try to distract from the issue here.”

“Just treat it like a custody arrangement,” Len says, tone dangerously mild. “They can’t hold in-laws against you, by the book, and we ain’t even that to you. It’s not like you’re married to a felon, after all, though I’m sure at least _someone_ in your department’s got a spouse with enough drug convictions to count as a felony, wouldn’t you say?”

Joe’s eyes narrow.

“So, shall we say peace?” Barry says hastily. He doesn’t know why Joe’s pissed off, but he’s going to take the potential win. “Maybe not, you know, _happy_ peace, more like, uh, Elves-and-Dwarves-style peace, but if it works for everyone…?”

“I don’t like the idea of being known around the department as a Family guy,” Joe says, but he sounds resigned. “But I want to be involved in Barry’s life. But just know, both of you, I’m going to be keeping an eye on you and if I even get the slightest hint that you’re not treating him right…”

“We’ll be keeping an eye on you, too,” Mick says, but Barry can see that he’s accepted it as well from the way his shoulders have slumped in defeat. 

“Excellent,” Len says, and reaches for Barry’s fork. “I see you got the pie…”

Barry smacks him on the back of the hand with his fork.


End file.
